At least eight U.S. Gulf Coast refineries began the process of restarting operations and four were operating at reduced rates while the status of Eagle Ford Shale operations trickled in on Sept. 5 following Hurricane Harvey’s departure.

EOG Resources Inc. (NYSE: EOG) dialed down its third-quarter 2017 production volumes due to Hurricane Harvey related shut-ins, according to a Sept. 5 regulatory filing.

EOG reduced the midpoint of its third-quarter 2017 U.S. crude oil and condensate volume guidance range by 15,000 barrels per day (bbl/d), though it said its full year guidance is unchanged. The company’s third quarter NGL and natural gas production guidance and capex also remained the same.

“EOG has begun to resume production as conditions permit and expects the majority of the impact will be realized in the company’s third-quarter 2017 crude oil and condensate volumes,” the company said.

Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. (NASDAQ: CRZO) also updated its Eagle Ford Shale assets and facilities, saying nothing was damaged as a result of the storm.

The company suspended its drilling and completions operations in the play but crews were able to return to the field the last week of August and all rigs and frack crews have resumed operations, the company said in a Sept. 5 news release.

“As a result of downtime at third-party midstream facilities and Gulf Coast refineries, sales volumes were temporarily reduced,” Carrizo said. “The company was able to secure some storage capacity, which has partially mitigated the impact on its production.”

Many of the third-party facilities have restarted and resumed taking crude oil and natural gas and Carrizo expects to ramp back to nearly full sales capacity this week, the company said. Carrizo will update its production guidance once more detailed information is available.

Denbury Resources Inc. (NYSE: DNR) said Sept. 6 that five of its six field affected by Harvey have restarted production. Denbury estimates that about 90% of its 16,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) production has been returned to production.

Denbury said the impact on third quarter production will be roughly 2000 boe/d to 2,200 boe/d.

Other E&Ps previously announced their response including:

  • BHP Billiton Ltd., (NYSE: BHP) which shut down drilling and completion activities at its Eagle Ford shale operations;
  • Chesapeake Energy Corp (NYSE: CHK) suspended drilling and completion of new wells in the Eagle Ford and evacuated staff;
  • ExxonMobil Corp's (NYSE: XOM) XTO Energy unit said on Aug. 25 it shut in some oil wells in the Eagle Ford shale region of Texas ahead of Hurricane Harvey;
  • Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO) released non-essential personnel and suspended operations where appropriate;
  • Noble Energy Inc. (NYSE: NBL) halted well completions and sent nonessential personnel home;
  • Pioneer Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: PXD) said Aug. 24 it stopped completing oil wells in the Eagle Ford Shale region of Texas ahead of Harvey;
  • Statoil ASA (NYSE: STO) evacuated staff;
  • Baytex Energy Corp. (NYSE: BTE) suspended drilling and completion operations and evacuated its Houston office with the company reporting operations should resume this week;
  • Sundance Energy Australia Ltd. (NASDAQ: SNDE) said in an Aug. 29 regulatory filing that it shut in about 75% of its Eagle Ford production; and
  • Lonestar Resources US Inc. (NASDAQ: LONE), which moves much of its oil to terminals via truck said Aug. 28 that it had evacuated Eagle Ford Shale personnel before the storm hit. The “vast majority of its wells” in Dimmit and LaSalle counties, Texas, continued to produce or have resumed operations.

Among refiners, ExxonMobil said its Baytown restart is continuing and pipelines are beginning to transport fuels. The company reported making “significant progress in restarting chemical production, pipelines and other logistical infrastructure in the Houston area.”

The company’s fuel terminals in Houston are open and supplying gasoline and diesel to customers. Offshore production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico are beginning to return to normal operations. Production units at the Beaumont refinery remain shut down due to flooding in the lower level of the refinery.

Vertex Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: VTNR), a refiner and marketer of high-quality specialty hydrocarbon products, said Sept. 5 that some of its business operations were affected by Harvey and the resulting flooding conditions throughout Texas.

Benjamin Cowart, CEO of Vertex Energy, said the company continues assessment of its facility.

“We have experienced some damage to our facilities and we will continue to assess over the next few weeks, along with the impact of the interruptions to the business operations,” Cowart said. “Due to the storm and floods, we were unable to mobilize our collection operations other than on a very limited basis from Aug. 25 to Sept. 1 in the Houston and Corpus Christi, Texas, and Louisiana markets.”

The eight refineries still out of commission have a combined capacity of 1.78 MMbbl/d, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said, noting that the outage represents 9.6% of total U.S. refining capacity.

Assessment of the Colonial Pipeline is ongoing, DOE said. The estimated restart between Houston and Hebert was Sept. 4 for Line 2 (distillates) and Sep. 5 for Line 1 (gasoline).

Colonial continues to ship as much gasoline and other refined products as available from Louisiana-based refineries and other refineries on the Colonial system east of Lake Charles, La., and will continue to do so as markets return to normal, DOE said.

On Sept. 4, about 4.12 MMbbl/d of Gulf of Mexico (GoM) oil production and 259.19 million cubic feet per day of the natural gas production was shut-in, according to estimates by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

Darren Barbee can be reached at dbarbee@hartenergy.com.